Quotes from Pema Chodron

All of us derive security and comfort from the imaginary world of memories and fantasies and plans. We really don't want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience

Holding on to beliefs limits our experience of life. That doesn't mean that beliefs or ideas or thinking is a problem; the stubborn attitude of having to have things be a particular way, grasping on to our beliefs and thoughts, all these cause the problems.

heavy emotion as a way to develop true compassion for ourselves and everyone else.

Só encontraremos aquilo que é indestrutível em nós à medida que nos expusermos cada vez mais à destruição

That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem. Self-importance is like a prison for us, limiting us to the world of our likes and dislikes. We end up bored to death with ourselves and our world. We end up very dissatisfied.

The path of meditation and the path of our lives altogether has to do with curiosity, inquisitiveness.

That which is threatening to ego is liberating to the heart.

There's a lot of precision, but also a lot of gentleness. Along with being very precise about our world, there's also always space around us that is called gentleness: we allow ourselves to experience how large and fluid and full of color and energy our world is. This space is our circle.

egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness, as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. That's not considered to be a problem; the point is to see it.

Mindfulness is loving all the details of our lives, and awareness is the natural thing that happens: life begins to open up, and you realize that you're always standing at the center of the world.

the essence of compassionate speech or compassionate action is to be there for people, without pulling back in horror or fear or anger.

Meditation begins to open up your life, so that you're not caught in self-concern, just wanting life to go your way.

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.

We suffer... because of three tragic misunderstandings. First, we expect that what is always in the process of change should be graspable and predictable... Second, we proceed as if we are separate from everything else, as if we are a fixed identity, when our true situation is egoless... Third, we look for happiness in all the wrong places. The Buddha called this habit "mistaking suffering for happiness.

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.

Our devotion to a teacher has nothing to do with his or her lifestyle or worldly accomplishments. It's their state of mind, the quality of their heart that we resonate with. When it comes to my teacher Chögyam Trungpa, he was so outrageous in his behavior that I could never model myself after him. But I do try to model myself on his way of being. He showed me by his example that we can rouse ourselves fearlessly and encourage one another to be sane.

that way of looking at things is what keeps us miserable. Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly.

feel gratitude to the Buddha for pointing out that what we struggle against all our lives can be acknowledged as ordinary experience. Life does continually go up and down.

there's more to liberation than trying to avoid discomfort, more to lasting happiness than pursuing temporary pleasures, temporary relief.

This world—absolutely pure As is. Behind the fear, Vulnerability. Behind that, Sadness, then compassion And behind that the vast sky.

Disappointment, embarrassment, and all the places where we cannot feel good are a sort of death... It's actually a sign of health that when we meet the place we are about to die, we feel fear and trembling.

There are six ways of describing this kind of cool loneliness. They are: less desire, contentment, avoiding unnecessary activity, complete discipline, not wandering in the world of desire, and not seeking security from one's discursive thoughts.

Here's something that's very helpful to know about now. The biggest obstacle to taking a bigger perspective on life is that our emotions capture and blind us.